Happy St Patrick's Day

Well, it is time for that ever popular blog post - the holiday post. I don't recall St. Patrick's Day being a big thing when I was growing up. As an adult it is different. This leads me to believe that it really is an excuse for 'adults' to drink beer to excess. It works (not that you need an excuse, mind)

Here in North America one of the biggest traditions (besides drinking enough green beer to make you vomit or dyeing the town fountain green) is serving corned beef and cabbage. I used to work with a woman from Ireland who was horrified at the concept. Corned Beef and Cabbage was considered to be simple food - not unlike corn dogs, spray cheese, grilled 'possum - not the sort of thing served for a special event. Nonetheless, corned beef is featured on many menus!

We celebrated St Patrick's Day last night. Our menu was more coloured based (the colour of the Irish flag is orange, green, and white) or consisted of ingredients which were Irish.

We started off with a refreshing Pear martini:

While we sipped our martinis, we nibbled on mini potato skins and a cheddar/shrimp dip which had a nice zing to it. Apparently the martini hit me hard because I forgot to take pics of these. Hmmm, this food blogger is slipping badly.

Later we moved to the dining room where the table was set for our feast.

The salad was a great creation of roasted golden beets, Cashel blue cheese, and arugula.

See what I mean about the colour thing?

Dare I say it . . . . The main course was corned beef.

What else?

We served it with a neat side dish I found at epicurious - a cabbage leaf cup which was filled with sliced cabbage, topped with horseradish mashed potatoes and baked. WOW This went really well with the glazed corned beef. We served honey-roasted carrots on the side.

For dessert we had a 2-layer key lime pie, because there is nothing so Irish as Key Lime Pie! In fairness I did want to make an Irish Rhubarb Cake but mom overruled me.

At least it is green - better than those who dye an angel food cake green and say it is Irish Cake!

Anyways, I found some little known St. Patrick's Day facts to honor the holiday:

people usually wear green on St. Patrick's Day -- but in Ireland, green was considered to be an unlucky color for a long time. Green was considered the favorite color for the Good People, or faeries, in Irish folklore, and they liked to steal people and especially children who wore too much green.

The original color associated with St. Patrick was blue, not green.

St. Patrick was not born in Ireland -- he was British, and was kidnapped by Irish brigands when he was 16.

Irish-Americans claim the second largest ethnic group in the United States today, second to German-Americans (surprising). There are actually more Americans of Irish ancestry then there are in Ireland!

Guiness, the beer of choice on St. Patrick's Day, was first brewed by Arthur Guiness in Dublin in 1759. 1.9 billion pints of Guiness are consumed around the world every year.

Swedish geographer Ulf Erlingsson recently claimed that Ireland is truly the lost city of Atlantis, identified by Plato in his works Timaeus and Critias.

St. Patrick supposedly used the three-leaved shamrocks to explain the Holy Trinity to the Irish.

March 17th is also home to some other, albeit less well-known, holidays, like:

Submarine Day

Companies That Care Day

Common Courtesy Day

Campfire Girls Day

The rubber band was also invented on March 17th, 1845.

So, Happy St. Patrick's Day to all you Irish folk out there, and to all of you who are just Irish for the day. Have fun, be responsible, and drink some green beer for me!

Comments

[Barb Cabot]

What a lovely dinner! Mmm key lime pie tops it off nicely!

[girasoli]

I had a couple of very Irish teachers when I was little. I can't remember their names now but what I do remember is that they made us wear green dunce caps on St. Patrick's Day if we did not wear green if we were Irish and especially if we wore orange which I guess was a big no-no.

I find the fact - "people usually wear green on St. Patrick's Day -- but in Ireland, green was considered to be an unlucky color for a long time. Green was considered the favorite color for the Good People, or faeries, in Irish folklore, and they liked to steal people and especially children who wore too much green" quite interesting. I wonder if my 2 crazy Irish teachers knew of this fact? I wonder if they were secretly trying to get us stolen :-)

[Jerry]

Perhaps your teachers were trying to tell you something!

In fairness, my Irish friends always wear green on St. Patrick's Day. The 'green as bad luck' superstition probably goes back 100s of years.

Thanks Barb. It is one of the best key lime pies I've had. One of these days I shall have to post it.